responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of
the physical universe. The term was subsequently
adopted by the Gnostics. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily thought of as being the
same as the creator figure in the familiar monotheistic sense, because both the demiurge itself plus the material from which the demiurge
fashions the universe are considered either
uncreated and eternal, or the product of some other
being, depending on the system. In Gnosticism the
Demiurge, creator of the material world, was not God but the Archon. The word "demiurge" is an English word from a Latinized form of the Greek δημιουργός, dēmiourgos, literally "public worker", and which was originally a common noun meaning
"craftsman" or "artisan", but gradually it came to
mean "producer" and eventually "creator". The
philosophical usage and the proper noun derive from Plato's Timaeus, written c. 360 BC, in which the demiurge is presented as the creator of the
universe. This is accordingly the definition of the
demiurge in the Platonic (c. 310 BC-90 BC) and Middle Platonic (c. 90 BC-300 AD) philosophical traditions. In the various branches of the Neoplatonic school (third century onwards), the demiurge is the fashioner of the real, perceptible
world after the model of the Ideas, but (in most neoplatonic systems) is still not itself "the One". In the arch-dualist ideology of the various Gnostic systems, the material universe is evil, while the
non-material world is good. Accordingly, the
demiurge is malevolent, as linked to the material world.
Plato, as the speaker Timaeus, refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus, c. 360 BC. The main character refers to the Demiurge as the entity who "fashioned and
shaped" the material world. Timaeus describes the
Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent, and hence desirous of a world as good as possible. The world
remains imperfect, however, because the Demiurge
created the world out of a chaotic, indeterminate non-being. Plato's work Timaeus is a philosophical reconciliation of Hesiod's cosmology in his Theogony, syncretically reconciling Hesiod to Homer. Middle Platonism In Numenius's Neo-Pythagorean and Middle Platonist cosmogony, the Demiurge is second God as the nous or thought of intelligibles and sensibles. Neoplatonism Plotinus and the later Platonists worked to clarify the Demiurge. To Plotinus, the second emanation represents an uncreated second cause (see Pythagoras' Dyad). Plotinus sought to reconcile Aristotle's energeia with Plato's Demiurge,which, as Demiurge and mind (nous), is a critical component in the ontological construct of human consciousness used to explain and clarify substance theory within Platonic realism (also called idealism). In order to reconcile Aristotelian with Platonian philosophy,Plotinus metaphorically identified the demiurge (or nous)
within the pantheon of the Greek Gods as Zeus (Dyeus). Henology The first and highest aspect of God is described by
Plato as the One, the source, or the Monad. This is the Good above the Demiurge, and manifests
through the work of the Demiurge. The Monad emanated the demiurge or Nous (consciousness) from its "indeterminate" vitality due to the monad
being so abundant that it overflowed back onto itself, causing self-reflection. This self-reflection of the indeterminate vitality was referred to by
Plotinus as the "Demiurge" or creator. The second
principle is organization in its reflection of the nonsentient force or dynamis, also called the one or the Monad. The dyad is energeia emanated by the one that is then the work, process or activity called nous, Demiurge, mind, consciousness that organizes the indeterminate vitality into the
experience called the material world, universe,
cosmos. Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in his Enneads which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the "mind" or nous (c.f. pantheism). Plotinus' form of Platonic idealism is to treat the Demiurge, nous as the contemplative faculty (ergon) within man which orders the force (dynamis) into conscious reality.
In this he claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning, a doctrine
he learned from Platonic tradition that did not
appear outside the academy or in Plato's text. This tradition of creator God as nous
(the manifestation of consciousness), can be validated in the works of
pre-Plotinus philosophers such as Numenius, as well as a connection between Hebrew and Platonic cosmology (see also Philo).
The Demiurge of Neoplatonism is the Nous (mind of God), and is one of the three ordering principles: Arche (Gr. "beginning") - the source of all things, Logos (Gr. "word") - the underlying order that is hidden beneath appearances, Harmonia (Gr. "harmony") - numerical ratios in mathematics. Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus' Enneads, no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the allegory in Plato's Timaeus. The idea of Demiurge was, however, addressed
before Plotinus in the works of Christian writer Justin Martyr who built his understanding of the Demiurge on the works of Numenius.
Iamblichus,Panentheism Later, the Neoplatonist Iamblichus changed the role of the "One", effectively altering the role of the
Demiurge as second cause or dyad, which was one
of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphyry came into conflict. The figure of the Demiurge emerges in the theoretic
of Iamblichus, which conjoins the transcendent,
incommunicable “One,” or Source. Here, at the
summit of this system, the Source and Demiurge
(material realm) coexist via the process of henosis.
Iamblichus describes the One as a monad whose first principle or emanation is intellect (nous), while among "the many" that follow it there's a second, super-existent "One" that is the producer of intellect or soul (psyche). The "One" is further separated into spheres of
intelligence; the first and superior sphere is objects
of thought, while the latter sphere is the domain of
thought. Thus, a triad is formed of the intelligible nous, the intellective nous, and the psyche in order to reconcile further the various Hellenistic
philosophical schools of Aristotle's actus and potentia of the unmoved mover and Plato's Demiurge. Then within this intellectual triad Iamblichus
assigns the third rank to the Demiurge, identifying it with the perfect or Divine nous with the intellectual triad being promoted to a hebdomad (pure intellect). In the theoretic of Plotinus, nous produces nature through intellectual mediation, thus the
intellectualizing gods are followed with a triad of
psychic gods.
Gnosticism presents a distinction between the
highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic
“creator” of the material. Several systems of
Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as
antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his
act of creation occurs in unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed,
or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a
solution to the problem of evil. Mythos One Gnostic mythos describes the declination of
aspects of the divine into human form. Sophia (Greek: Σοφια, lit. “wisdom”), the Demiurge’s mother a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma or “Fullness,” desired to create something apart from
the divine totality, without the receipt of divine assent. In this act of separate creation, she gave
birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being
ashamed of her deed, wrapped him in a cloud and
created a throne for him to be within it. The
Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother, nor
anyone else, concluded that only he himself existed, being ignorant of the superior levels of
reality. The Demiurge, having received a portion of power
from his mother, sets about a work of creation in
unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic
realm: He frames the seven heavens, as well as all material and animal things, according to forms
furnished by his mother; working however blindly,
and ignorant even of the existence of the mother
who is the source of all his energy. He is blind to all
that is spiritual, but he is king over the other two provinces. The word dēmiourgos properly describes his relation to the material; he is the father of that which is animal like himself. Thus Sophia’s power becomes enclosed within the
material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped
within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic
movements was typically the awakening of this
spark, which permitted a return by the subject to
the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source. Angels Psalms 82:1 describes a plurality of gods (ʼelōhim), which an older version in the Septuagint calls the “assembly of the gods”, although it does
not indicate that these gods were co-actors in
creation. Philo had inferred from the expression, "Let us make man," of Genesis that God had used
other beings as assistants in the creation of man,
and he explains in this way why man is capable of
vice as well as virtue, ascribing the origin of the
latter to God, of the former to His helpers in the work of creation.[14] The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of
creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis. So Irenaeus tells of the system of Simon Magus,of the system of Menander, of the system of Saturninus, in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and of the system of Carpocrates. In the report of the system of Basilides, we are told that our world was made by the angels who occupy
the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of
their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews, to have led that people out of the land of Egypt, and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the
other world-making angels. The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus,makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of Him. Theodoret,who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number “powers,” and so Epiphanius represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by Angels.
In the Ophite and Sethian systems, which have many affinities with that last mentioned, the
making of the world is ascribed to a company of
seven archons, whose names are given, but their chief, “Yaldabaoth” (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or
"Ialdabaoth") comes into still greater prominence. In the Apocryphon of John c. 120-180 AD, the Demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the
world by himself:
“ Now the archon (ruler) who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the
second is Saklas (“fool”), and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, "I am God and
there is no other God beside me," for he is
ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come. ”
He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of
light from above enters the body of man and gives
him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries
to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the
fruit of knowledge in paradise. At the
consummation of all things all light will return to the Pleroma. But Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower
depths. Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced" leontoeides, with the body of a serpent. We are told also that the Demiurge is of a fiery nature, the words of Moses being applied to him, “the Lord
our God is a burning and consuming fire,” a text used also by Simon. In Pistis Sophia Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in Chaos, where, with
his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in
boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments
(pp. 257, 382). He is an archon with the face of a
lion, half flame and half darkness. Under the name of Nebro (rebel), Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. He is first mentioned in “The Cosmos, Chaos, and
the Underworld” as one of the twelve angels to
come “into being [to] rule over chaos and the
[underworld]”. He comes from heaven, his “face
flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled
with blood”. Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six in turn create another twelve angels “with each one
receiving a portion in the heavens.”
“Yaldabaoth”-
“Son of Chaos,” from Hebrew yalda bahut, ילדא בהות
“Samael” literally means “Blind God” or “God of the Blind” in Aramaic (Syriac sæmʻa-ʼel). This being is considered not only blind, or ignorant of its own
origins, but may in addition be evil; its name is also
found in Judaica as the Angel of Death and in Christian demonology. This leads to a further comparison with Satan. Another alternative title for the Demiurge, “Saklas,” is Aramaic for “fool” (Syriac sækla “the foolish one”). The angelic name "Ariel" (meaning "the lion of God" in Hebrew) has also been used to refer to the Demiurge, and is called his "perfect" name; in some Gnostic lore, Ariel has been called an ancient or original name for Ialdabaoth. The name has also been inscribed on amulets as "Ariel Ialdabaoth",and the figure of the archon inscribed with "Aariel".[33] Marcion According to Marcion, the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished
from the higher Good God. The former was díkaios, severely just, the latter agathós, or loving- kind; the former was the "god of this
world" (2 Corinthians 4:4 ), the God of the Old Testament, the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, though in reality the Son of the Good God, pretended to be the Messiah of the
Demiurge, the better to spread the truth concerning
His heavenly Father. The true believer in Christ
entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever
remained forever the slave of the Demiurge. Valentinus It is in the system of Valentinus that the name Dēmiourgos is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connection with the Valentinian
system; we may reasonably conclude that it was
Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of
this word. When it is employed by other Gnostics
either it is not used in a technical sense, or its use
has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially
Valentinian; the personage intended by it
corresponds more or less closely with the
Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides, the Elohim of Justinus, etc. The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth (he káta sophía or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual (pneumatikoí), the animal (psychikoí) and the material (hylikoí). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter.And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of Sophía the last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many
emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God. In creating this world out of Chaos the Demiurge
was unconsciously influenced for good; and the
universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became
almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its
slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the
Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was
actually united Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either hylikoí, or pneumatikoí. The first, or material men, will return to the
grossness of matter and finally be consumed by
fire; the second, or animal men, together with the
Demiurge, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor hyle; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and
together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his
spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body (hyle) and soul (psyché).
In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior
though not intrinsically evil function in the universe
as the head of the animal, or psychic world. The devil Opinions on the devil, and his relationship to the
Demiurge, varied. The Ophites held that he and his
demons constantly oppose and thwart the human
race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world. According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is besides
the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of spiritual beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil, as being a spirit of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge,
who is only animal, has no knowledge. The devil
resides in this lower world, of which he is the
prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother
Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma.
The Valentinian Heracleon interpreted the devil as the principle of evil, that of hyle (matter). As he writes in his commentary on John 4:21
“ The mountain represents the Devil, or his
world, since the Devil was one part of the
whole of matter, but the world is the total
mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of
beasts, to which all who lived before the law
and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the
Creator whom the Jews worship. . . . You then
who are spiritual should worship neither the
creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of
Truth. ”
This vilification of the creator was held to be
inimical to Christianity by the early fathers of the
church. In refuting the beliefs of the gnostics, Irenaeus stated that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the
same God was both just and good, having power
over all things, and himself executing judgment."
Cathars Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world from Gnosticism.
Gnosticism attributed falsehood or evil to the
concept of Demiurge or creator, though in some
Gnostic traditions the creator is from a fallen,
ignorant, or lesser—rather than evil—perspective,
such as that of Valentinius. Plotinus The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works Gnosticism's conception of the
Demiurge, which he saw as un-Hellenic and blasphemous to the Demiurge or creator of Plato.
Plotinus is noted as the founder of Neoplatonism (along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas).
In the ninth tractate of the second of his Enneads, Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their
appropriation of ideas from Plato: Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for “all the novelties through which they seek to
establish a philosophy of their own” which, he
declares, “have been picked up outside of the truth”;they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy,
which they have corrupted by their extraneous and
misguided embellishments. Thus their
understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed
in comparison to Plato’s original intentions. Whereas Plato's Demiurge is good wishing good
on his creation, Gnosticism contends that the
Demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil
as well.
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